Sherry Rehman named among TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2023

NEW YORK (APP) - Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has been named among the ‘100 Most Influential People of 2023’ by TIME, a leading American magazine.

The list, unveiled Friday, has chosen the “influential people” under six categories — artists, icons, pioneers, leaders, titans, and innovators.

Sherry Rehman figures among the 20 most influential leaders of 2023 that included US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, and President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary and special envoy for international climate action, wrote Sherry Rehman’s profile for TIME’s 100 most influential people issue, praising her efforts during the devastating floods that hit Pakistan last year.

“We will need more people like Sherry Rehman along the way,” Ms Morgan wrote.

She said that Pakistan was responsible for only a fraction of global emissions, but the climate crisis led to more than a third of the country being flooded last year.

“The water had not yet fully receded when Sherry Rehman arrived in Egypt for COP27, the UN climate summit, in November,” she noted, adding that there, as Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, she gave a voice to those who had lost everything to the floods.

“Through impassioned speeches and tireless engagement in negotiations, she convinced many of the delegates that the blatant injustice must come to an end,” Ms Morgan wrote.

“COP27 ended with a historic decision — the world community agreed for the first time to establish new loss and damage funding arrangements to support the most vulnerable countries.”

The German official highlighted that it was a big step toward climate justice, “but we still have a long way to go.”